


serendipity shouldn't apply to dumpster encounters

by abscission



Series: the sky is blue and I love you [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, Lotor but soft, M/M, Meet-Cute, Pre-Relationship, Soft Lotor (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-21 02:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21067589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abscission/pseuds/abscission
Summary: Lotor doesn't know if helping hot strangers in questionable situations earns him any brownie points on the wholelifething, but as his friends always say, he's a sucker for blue eyes.or: lancelot + a happy accident.for whumptober day 10/14: unconscious + tear-stained.I play it fast and loose.





	serendipity shouldn't apply to dumpster encounters

**Author's Note:**

> Something a little lighter!

“Like that slasher movie?” Narti asks, a hand on Kova. In the relative quietness, Lotor can hear his cat purring up a storm from across the living room. When did Kova curl up? A second ago he was batting beer cans around. 

“Yeah, Elm Street, _yes_ like the movie,” Acxa says, long-suffering, not looking up from her phone.

Ezor flips upside down on the couch so that her face is as pink as her hair, which brushes the floor and makes a smooth gradient into Lotor’s purple carpet. “There’s a knife joke in there somewhere.”

“I charge extra for puke in the carpet,” Lotor reminds them all.

Zethrid snorts from where she’s stretched across Lotor’s favorite armchair, her feet propped up on the ottoman. “Pretty sure your hair can pass for a fancy pelt.”

“Why, thank you!” Ezor thrills a laugh that’s a little too high.

“Wasn’t talking to you,” Zethrid grunts, but she’s smirking. 

Lotor shakes his head and doesn’t say anything. Across the room, Narti presses her lips together to avoid laughing.

“If you’re fishing for advice on hair-care,” Lotor says mildly as he steps into the girls’ irregular circular sprawl to pick up the trash, “simply ask, and ye shall receive.”

“What?” Ezor drawls, reaching out a lazy hand to scratch at Lotor’s ankle as he passes. Really. He didn’t adopt _two_ strays. “Everyone knows piss-saturated chlorine is the best shampoo, don’t you?”

Zethrid bares her teeth and aims a blind kick. She catches Lotor’s leg instead; he stumbles, swearing softly. “One time,” she says. “_One_ time I don’t shower.”

“Go home,” Lotor sighs, tying up the black trash bag. “Don’t you all have class tomorrow?” 

“_ I _ don’t,” Ezor says, smug as a cat. 

“Well, my Uber is coming in three. See y’all.” Acxa stands up with a wobble.

“I’ll see you out?” Lotor asks.

“No need,” she replies, and staggers to her bag.

“I’ll do it,” Narti says, standing up too. Kova jumps off her lap and tries valiantly to trip her, but Narti has long since mastered the art of walking around cats, silent as they are, and so she remains victoriously upright. 

Lotor clicks his affirmative, then goes to throw his trash. If Ezor’s still draped over his couch when he gets back, he’ll threaten her with rent. 

Outside, the street lamps cast quiet, shadowy pools of yellow on rain-damp asphalt. Which doesn’t make sense as a descriptor, but it says a lot about Lotor’s mood that he’s romanticizing urban residential areas. 

The dumpster at the end of the street receives only a little of the newly-romanticized lighting, but the slump of a humanoid figure against the back wall gives him pause.

Lotor stops. Squints.

Behind him, Zethrid’s thick boots crunch on wet leaves. “What’re you starin’ at?”

The shape groans. He shifts, doesn’t quite manage an upright position, then seemingly blacks out again. The faint light illuminates a pool of vomit by his head. 

“Ah.” Zethrid says, significantly.

Indeed. 

“You want some help?” She asks. 

Zethrid rarely drank as much as they did, least of all because she’s usually responsible for getting Ezor back to their dorm room in one piece. Today, though, Lotor really appreciates another semi-sober presence. 

He glances back down the street. Acxa’s driver is just pulling in, and she and Narti are two bundled figures on that end. Ezor is leaning on the grate of his apartment, nodding off. “You called a driver?”

“Yeah. I can hang around to help, though, if you—” she nods at the guy passed out in the dumpster.

“No need.” Lotor shakes his head and squats down. “Text the group when you get back safe?” 

“Sure.” She gives his shoulder a pat, then departs. 

Lotor watches her shoulder all of Ezor’s weight like Ezor was a bunch of grapes and go round the corner to where her motorcycle is parked. 

Alright. First order of business. 

Lotor snaps his fingers in the stranger’s face, but he only groans. It’s a good sign, but Lotor’s phone is in the house and he’s reluctant to leave the stranger here again. He doesn’t even have a coat with him.

“Lotor?” Narti calls, a hand on the gate.

Oh, good. 

“Hey, can you get me my coat?” Lotor says, but not too loud, because the neighbours get prissy. 

“Sure. Why?” 

“Somebody passed out at the dumpster.”

“Oh dear,” she says, and disappears for a while.

Lotor shakes the stranger by his shoulder, lightly. “Hey,” he says, “you okay?”

Blearily and with obvious effort, the stranger raises his head and cracks open his eyes— and it must be the lighting, Lotor despairs, because thinking someone he met in a _ dumpster _ to be hot is low, even for him.

Still. The stranger has a striking profile and brilliant blue eyes and lips pale from the cold. He makes Lotor regret sending his friends home—at least then he’d have a defensive wall to hide behind (or brandish in the vague direction of; Ezor is _very_ proactive). Lotor peers back towards the house for Narti.

Right on cue, the gate swings open and she exits, looking both ways down the street. 

“Narti, over here,” he says, pitching his voice a little louder than conversational to prevent startling the beautiful stranger, and crunches some leaves underfoot to signal his position.

Lotor’s coat is slung over her arm, and as she stops and hands it to him she says, “I’ll be going. Do you need anything else?” 

He had planned to walk her home; they don’t live far apart. “If you wait—” but he trails off, because Narti is holding her cane and shaking her head. “Alright. Take care.”

She smiles, then suddenly turns her head and says, “Hello. I’m Narti. I have to go now, but Lotor will make sure you get to a hospital if you have alcohol poisoning, so don’t worry.”

What? Lotor turns around to find that the stranger is awake and staring at Lotor.

God, his eyes are so blue. 

_ Tap tap tap _. Narti is already halfway down the street, a faint clicking drifting behind her.

“Well,” says Blue, and no way should a raspy voice sound sexy but he manages it, “you’re a sight for sore eyes.” Somehow, half lit by shitty urban lamps and backed against a dumpster, he still managed a smoulder. “I must still be dreaming if you’re real.” Dark blue eyes drag over Lotor’s skin, and against all reason, Lotor feels himself flushing. 

Clearly this man is still inebriated. Should he have called an ambulance after all?

“Can you stand?” Lotor asks. He, unlike popular consensus, does have a heart.

“Anything for you.” Blue grins rakishly. 

Unfortunately for Lotor, that grin lances right through said heart, and he wrenches his flustered expression into a grimace. Blue isn’t going to remember anything come morning, so a little non-verbal rudeness is surely allowed.

An ungloved hand against the plastic of the dumpster, another against a knee, and Blue heaves himself into a standing position. He sways dangerously and pales a considerable bit, which is when Lotor’s brain helpfully registers he must have a wonderful complexion when healthy— ignoring all that, Lotor reaches out an arm to steady him; he tips right over into Lotor’s arms, breath stinking of alcohol. 

_ Oh, no,  _ Lotor thinks, resigned, _ he’s _ short.

Damn  this to hell, that’s all his buttons hit. 

Granted, Lotor is a giant, and by some stroke of luck he has surrounded himself with friends of if-not-equal-then-matching stature, all of which has skewed his perception. Blue could’ve been of average height, but that does not change how his head fits right into the crook between neck and shoulder. 

“You smell nice,” Blue murmurs into his collar, then giggles, and Lotor—

Lotor can feel the burrowing, squirming feeling which indicates the beginnings of  _ emotion _ — he steps on it, hard. Once this is over, he’ll open another bottle of wine, skip all his lessons for the week, curl up on his bed and ignore the doorbell and do a good, long mope.

But before that. 

Lotor takes the proximity as a chance to wrap Blue in the overcoat. Lotor has no idea how long Blue had been out here, and anyway his nose is freezing. His hands— 

“Christ,” Lotor lets out a hiss, and snatches Blue’s wondering hands out from beneath his shirt. Ice-cold fingertips aside, he doubts Blue wants to commit a  _ second _ mistake tonight, because surely passing out beside the garbage qualifies as a mistake. 

Which reminds him.

“Can I call you a cab?” Lotor asks, and begins to carefully maneuver Blue out of the corner and onto proper pavement, where he can sit down in something other than rubbish and bile. Lucky for him, none of his original deposition got on his clothes.

“Oh,” Blue says, sounding marginally more sober, “that’s fine, a friend is picking me up—”

Abruptly, he stops speaking. Stops moving, too. A beat late, Lotor looks down, and Blue is crying silently, eyes wide and tears rolling down his face.

“Shit,” Blue says, pulling away, and the slur has gone out of his voice. He scrubs at his face (Lotor tries not to wince). “Shit, I’m sorry. Oh God.”

He bumps into the grating around the apartments, fumbles a bit, then curls a hand around one of the metal stems and heaves for breath. He’s looking a little ill, and Lotor glances down the road; his apartment is just one door down now, if he can make sure Blue won’t bolt, he can get a wastebasket and some tissue.

“I’m sorry, fuck, this is so embarrassing—” Blue huffs a laugh, the sound wavery and drier than a desert summer all at once, a combination that does something complicated in Lotor’s chest. “I didn’t mean- I’m sorry to have bothered you, I—” He takes a great gulp of air, and Lotor seizes his chance.

“Hey,” he says, soft and low and unobtrusive. “It’s alright, take your time. Do you need anything?”

Blue doesn’t reply immediately. Lotor half-suspects him to be fighting back a wave of nausea, so he continues. “My flat is close by. If you’ll wait here, I’ll get you some water and a bucket.”

“That’d be great,” Blue says weakly, “thank you so much.”

Lotor takes a step, imagines himself in Blue’s position, and so adds, keeping his voice light, “That coat’s my favorite. Please don’t run off with it?” He lingers just long enough to make sure Blue sees his smile, then turns.

* * *

Lance tries, very hard, to not throw up on the pavement.  _ There’s a bucket coming _ , he promises his heaving stomach, and slid down to the pavement.

He tries equally hard to not remember.

—the details from the party, that is. The good (god-like, at this point; who knew how long he put up with Lance?) Samaritan’s smile he clung to like he clung to the cool metal bars. 

The coat too; Lance pulls up a fistful of collar to his nose and inhales the scent of pine and cologne. Either Bleeding-Heart has hiking as a hobby or he has weirdly dedicated cologne tastes. Whichever it is, it calms Lance down, right up until he realizes a total stranger has just been kinder towards him than Keith had in all the time they knew each other— and another wave of sobs well up in his throat. 

The moment Keith introduced his boyfriend to them (what was his name, ...Ryan? Riley? never mind.) Lance knew the whole evening was about to go down the gutter.

He wipes at the fresh tears angrily. This isn’t even a good cry. A good cry is two months ago when he wailed into Hunk’s shoulder after a merry get-together and washing away a whole semester of stress. A good cry is him curling up with Pidge and Matt and sobbing his heart out over old anime.

He  _ never  _ said anything to Keith and he did  _ not  _ expect anything and  _ he _ drank too much, the fault is on him. No one else. 

“Love?” says a melodious voice. Lance jumps, but it’s just the guy from earlier. He’s bundled up now, white hair (what is it — bleached? It’s hot, and Lance flushes) messily tucked into a scarf.

And  _ shit  _ he’s handsome. Way more handsome than Keith will ever dream of becoming. In a whole different league. This dude is too classy to be called ‘hot’, and Lance does not, in general, practice melodramatic sincerity. This dude looks like he stepped out of a fairytale castle and into the apparel section of a high-end shopping mall and every matching fashionable autumn wear attached themselves to him for sheer want of his  _ handsomeness _ —

Right. The booze. Lance can feel the butterflies drowning in bile, and when his stomach turns again, Fairytale Prince pushes the wastebasket into his hands. Lance heaves into it, feeling nothing come up. 

He hates this bit of drinking. Usually, he doesn’t let himself get this far. 

Today, though… 

_ You’re not going to say anything, are you?  _ Hunk had asked.

_ Then nothing’s going to come of it!  _ Pidge had huffed,  _ drop it, Lance, before you hurt yourself. _

Another series of heaves. This time, he feels a hand rubbing his back, but its gone when he surfaces for air. 

Damn. Pidge and Hunk! They’ll _ kill him _ when they find out. Skin him alive!

Alright, it feels like nothing’s going to come up anymore. Slightly queasy, Lance raises his head.

“Better?” the gorgeous voice asks, suffused with concern. A strip of warmth presses against Lance’s arm, and Lance’s respect for the man raises a notch. Who voluntarily cozies up to someone who barfed in a  _ dump _ ?

Lance manages to nod with nothing rebelling, and before he can work his foul-tasting mouth to say something, the man passes him two small bottles: a travel-sized fluoride mouthwash and a bottle of water with a brand Lance doesn’t recognize. This- this goddamned  _ saint _ —

Here come the waterworks. 

Lance’s first instinct is to turn to the wastebasket to hide, then remembers what just went in there and draws back, right into the man’s personal space. The man very politely doesn’t recoil, so Lance sets the basket down and tries to straighten. “I—I’m so sorry,” Lance manages, thickly, then starts patting his pockets for his phone. “I’ll be out of your hair soon, I swear—”

“Hey, it’s no problem.” Drop-Dead-Gorgeous actually chuckles, softly. “I’ve had my share of bad decisions in my clubbing days. I would’ve wanted someone to be there when I woke up in the trash. From that angle, this is actually a selfish act.”

Lance stares at him, phone in hand but momentarily forgotten. Did he just philosophize this situation?

“You have a name, love?” the man asks, smiling that low-key blinding smile again and oh, right, Lance should’ve asked that; or introduced himself; whichever it is you do when some kind-hearted soul picks you up from the dumpster and smiles at you like they aren’t swallowing back bile of their own. The man is also holding out an open packet of tissue, and Lance snatches that, wiping furiously at his face. 

“Lance,” Lance says, thickly, aware he’s been silent too long. “Lance McClain. Can I, er, what’s your— that is, may I ask—” He falters. This man is  _ so  _ out of his league and this whole situation is so ridiculous it’s approaching the level of farce.

The man’s smile dims a little and a small furrow appears between his brows. “Lotor Sincline-Drule. It’s nice to properly meet you, Lance.”

Oh god. The way his name rolls off Lotor’s tongue—

“Erm.” Lance mains a death-grip on his phone. —right. “Likewise? Er, listen, I have to call my friends but my phone is dead and I don’t actually remember their numbers, so,” he takes a breath, secretly proud of how his gulp of air doesn’t hitch on the way down, “can I borrow your charger and then I’ll call a cab and I won’t get in your way while the phone charges, promise.”

Lotor just stares at him for a long second with a corner of his mouth crooked upwards, as though he’s privy to a joke and is just waiting for Lance to figure it out. 

Oh. He didn’t phrase that as a question. Just as Lance opens his mouth to correct himself, Lotor shakes his head minutely and wiggles the two outstretched bottles. “Take these first, love. You’ll feel better, promise.” He winks.

When Lance first laid eyes on Keith three years ago — yes he’s pathetic, he’s established that — it was a literal double take. Although Lance maintained a steady friendship, Keith never looked over, not once. But here’s Lotor, leaning his back against rusting metal fencing, looking like a painting, directing all his attention to Lance when he didn’t have to, and when normal people would’ve walked right past.

Lance takes the mouthwash and water. They’re sealed, and the water looks like one of those handouts of bottled water from a fancy corporate conference. Rachel took a temp job for one of those subletting firms, and ended up bringing back a whole box of them.

Lotor is folding his coat and scarf, giving Lance a modicum of privacy. Lance takes the chance to rinse his mouth off, twice. Then he caps the bottles, ties up the plastic bag, and looks to Lotor. He does feel better. At least his mouth doesn’t taste like a dead animal now, and his breath has probably improved.

“So about the phone…” he prompts, inwardly cringing at his forwardness. 

Lotor looks his way again. He’s sitting up straight, legs folded underneath him, long fingers plucking at the fur trim on his coat. With a curious strain to his voice he says, “You can charge it in the car? Is there somewhere I can drop you off? I don’t know how long you’ve been at the dumpster before I came across you, so I’ll rest better if I could see you home safe.”

Lance stares at him, and says the first thing that comes to mind. “No. That’d be asking too much! You’ve already been so kind, I can’t possibly ask you to drive me.” He shakes his head, and attempts, successfully, to rise. “I’ll call a cab. Or I’ll borrow your phone to call a cab.”

“Ah, but you’re not asking,” Lotor rises with him and steadies him with a hand on his shoulder. It’s dropped equally fast. “I’m offering.” And then, thoughtfully, “I’d be embarrassed to show you the state of my apartment, anyway. I just had friends over, and they are rather destructive.”

Lance tries not to groan. Life is  _ so _ unfair to him. He tries to find the words to refuse and convey that  _ this really is enough, thank you for not leaving me to rot  _ but all he manages is a bewildered sort of gaping.

Lotor’s expression crumples for a fraction of a second before it’s wiped off. “I might have a portable charger lying around… What’s the model of your phone? If you don’t mind waiting outside, I can grab it for you?”

“Oh, that’d be good, yeah,” Lance says, unwilling to look too close at the deflating sensation in his chest. This is going to be a chance encounter, and he doesn’t want anything else to happen. If he tells himself that enough times, he’ll believe it.

“My house is that way,” Lotor says, pointing, and in the time it takes for Lance to peer through the dim lighting for the alleged door, Lotor has swiped the plastic bag of puke from his hands and swung it into the dumpster. Passing Lance, Lotor gives him a grin. “This way.”

A small gate and a red door, and two rectangular planters of purple snapdragons, washed out by the streetlights.

And an intermittent scratching sound. 

Lance’s eyes take a moment to adjust to the shadowed doorway, but he realizes there’s a second door — a screen door — in front of the red one, and that a cat has been trapped between them.

Behind the screen door, a tortoiseshell cat is pawing at the frame. Lotor lets out a soft  _ damn _ and hurries forwards, but not before he brushes Lance’s elbow in reassurance. 

He is so  _ nice _ and so completely  _ out of his league _ — Lance sighs and tries to put it out of his mind.

The cat stops pawing at the door at Lotor’s approach. The screen door opens outwards, so Lotor doesn’t bother blocking the cat. It slips past him, heading straight for Lance, lamp-like eyes shining.

It’s adorable. There’s a little patch of ginger on its head and a patch of ginger on its chest, looking like a crown and a scarf, and its bushy tail is two solid colors. The rest of its mottled fur gleams under the watery light of the street.

Startled but delighted, Lance looks at Lotor for permission. Lotor, framed in the doorway, simply huffs a cute little exasperated breath and gestures at Lance to go ahead.

Lance squats, holds out his hand for the cat to scent. The bars are between them, and the cat doesn’t step over them. It stops and sniffs at Lance’s offered hand, then rubs its cheeks against his knuckles, rumbling a not-quite-purr.

“He’s Kova,” Lotor says, and when Lance looks up, Lotor is staring at the cat, fondly. “I picked him up as a stray a year ago. Same place I found you.” Lotor quirks an eyebrow at Lance; Lance recognizes it as an invitation to share a joke, and warmth blooms in his chest.

“Pity you can’t adopt me,” he says, grinning, and resolutely does not regret the (un)fortunate implications. Then he remembers something. Stretching his arm out had reminded him he’s still wearing Lotor’s windbreaker. “Oh, damn. Here-” Without thinking it through, he takes off the coat, bundles it up, and lobs it at Lotor in the doorway, just as he would’ve done to Hunk when passing something across the dorm room they shared. 

Horrified by what he’s done, Lance stared as the coat sailed through the air in slow motion. It’s going to fall int the snow and be ruined, he  _ knows _ it.

Lotor, startled as he must be, only takes a step forwards and reaches out a hand, and it thumps securely over his arm. “Nice throw,” he says, after a beat of mutual silence.

Lance suppresses the snort of laughter that bubbles up, but he can’t stop the grin that breaks across his face when Lotor huffs another laugh, shakes his head, and disappears into the doorway.

For the split second where the streetlights spill into the hallway, Lance sees a narrow corridor, a coat rack, and a nice little nook beside the shoe cabinets, presumably for one to sit down and de-shoe themselves, but all Lance can think of is how cosy must be.

Kova rumbles again, two paws on the ground and two paws on the metal bars, insistent that he gets attention, and Lance guiltily goes back to petting it. Probably shouldn’t think of how much he wants to kiss Kova’s owner while petting it. Cats can be frighteningly insightful.

All cats are cute, and even though Kova is skinnier than most cats Lance has seen, when he scratches Kova under his chin the cat purrs and tilts his head up to give Lance more space and the angle makes that almost-smiley face cats seem to make. He’s so focused on figuring out how Kova ticked that the next time he looks up, Lotor is standing a few feet away, looking hesitant. He’s clearly been there a while, and the pile of clothes in his hands is starting to sink.

Lotor’s eyes dart between Kova and Lance for a second then he smiles winningly. “You seemed to be enjoying yourself, didn’t want to intrude.”

At his owner’s voice, Kova’s tail curls up and he trots over to Lotor to sit on his hunches and demand, in that rumbling chirrup, for pets. 

“Yes, yes,” Lotor says, sounding fond and put-upon (but in a slightly performative way, as though he did this with Kova every day), and unlike most people whose voice went up when talking to their pets, his voice drops to a baritone. “just give me a minute, darling.”

Kova winds himself around Lotor’s legs, so Lotor had to gently nudge the cat out of the way to walk.“Could you hold these for a minute? I need to take him inside,” Lotor hands Lance the pile of coats and immediately turns around, scooping Kova up before the cat can dodge.

Kova looks distinctly liquid, hanging limp in Lotor’s hands. The two of them melt into the doorway for a moment, then Lotor is back, pulling his hair into a bun.

“The charger is in one of the pockets,” Lotor indicates with his chin. His fingers does a twist, and then his hands are free to shake out a coat. “It’s cold out,” he says, throwing the coat over the gate and fishing in its pockets for a sleek black charger. Lance fishes out his dead iPhone and Lotor sets it charging, humming tunelessly. “And I’d really feel better if you took this coat with you, since you won’t let me drive you.”

It  _ is _ cold, but until now, Lance hasn’t really felt it. 

He looks at the coat and thinks, slightly desperately, that Lotor’s not likely to want to accept monetary compensation for his charity today. Only, the single other option of paying back this huge huge favor in Lance’s head is woefully inadequate. Even if he  _ does  _ muster up the courage to ask Lotor for coffee, what can he offer this amazing man that he doesn't already have?

Lance wets his lips. “Alright,” he says, and gives a weak smile that makes as sincere as possible. “Thank you  _ so _ much, Lotor. How can I ever repay you.”

Lotor just smiles like the goddamned Mona Lisa, if she was blond and dark-skinned and devastatingly handsome.

Lance’s heart can’t take much more of this.

“It’s an old coat,” Lotor says, as Lance pulls it on and finds it more snug than the last one. “So you don’t have to think about..” He pauses. “Think of it as a good luck charm so you won’t wake up in any more dumpsters.”

Lance cracks a smile at that. “You know, I still can’t work out how I got there on foot.”

“You stumbled, drunk?” Lotor says, vaguely deadpan, half-smiling to soften the delivery.

“More like tripped over several rooftops,” Lance muses, looking down the road. “Speaking of, where is this? Oh, no, hold on.”

His phone had just buzzed. Lance clears his throat, then unlocks his phone and calls Pidge.

Faster than texting.

The rings connect, and the first ring hasn’t even started with Pidge’s voice explodes from the mic. In anticipation, Lance is holding it a good distance from his ear. “Where have you been? Fuck. Where are you? Sweet mother of God, did you know how freaked out we were? Still are? LANCE?”

Lance grimaces, then says, “Yeah, I’m not dead.”

“Tell me where you are so I can come over and kill you myself.”

He darts a look at Lotor, which proves much easier than looking at him head on. Lotor has propped his elbows on the gate and grinning, evidently able to hear every single word of their conversation. Lance finds that, after someone’s sat through your most embarrassing moments, he doesn’t mind a harmless case of eavesdropping. 

“Calm down, Pidge. I’m fine, I passed out—”

“ _ What. _ ”

“—but I’m fine now, you don’t have to come get me.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not letting you call an Uber at 4 in the morning. You might get a serial killer, it’d be just your luck. Where are you? Street name? Area? Hunk, wake up, get the GPS working.”

“Are you going to track my phone?” Lance asks, bemused.

“Address!” Pidge barks, and Lance leans away from the phone to look at Lotor.

“107 Altean Way,” Lotor says. A strand of white hair has loosened from the bun and flops into his face, and, god, with the laughter in his eyes and the easy grin, he is out of this world. Lance’s mouth goes dry at the sight. 

He’s not sure what Lotor sees on his face. Lotor holds out a hand for the phone, and there’s a strand of amusement in his voice when he asks, “Need me to tell them?” He’s pitching his voice low. He’s giving Lance an out, to not mention him to Pidge.

Despite the cheeky demeaour, Lance realizes, Lotor is as ready to fade into the background as he is with wrapping up this encounter as a happy memory. Lance’s throat closes up.

“Hey, Pidge?”

“Yeah, what. Address!”

“107 Altean Way. Listen. Where are you? Still at Keith’s?”

“Nah, he kicked us all out when you overturned that table. Me and Hunk are at a dive bar right now. Why?”

“Can you grab something take away for me? On the way or there or whatever, I wanna thank the guy who helped me out when I blacked out.”

Lotor straightens, surprise written all across his face.

Pidge whistles. “Alright. But hey, why don’t you just get his number and treat him to something later on? It’s 4am. Even the line cook’s not expected to whip up anything good at 4am.”

Lance… had considered it, and dropped the idea before it even formed. But Pidge is loud, and they both heard it.

“Shit,” Pidge laughs, “This is turning out hilariously. Is he there right now? Is that why you’re not talking?” In the background, tinnily, Hunk shouts, “Hi, kind stranger!”

Lance can’t believe his friends are ganging up on him  _ across the phone line _ .

Lotor’s eyes are wide, and for the first time that night he looks the way Lance feels. The coat is a weight on his shoulders in a way it wasn’t before, and over the phone Pidge is straight up cackling. 

“We’ve found the way! You must’ve crossed several alleys to get there, Lance. Stand where we can see you and I’ll hang up so you can get that guy’s number. Anyone who can make you shut up, I approve of.”

_ Click _ . Dial tone.

Weakly, Lance says, “Fucker.” to the phone. It’s still connected to the charger, the white wire gleaming in the dim light. 

Lotor laughs, breathy and endearing. “Give me a moment.” He pushes off the gates and walks inside, and for a heart-stopping moment Lance thinks Lotor has left, shut the door, never to come out again, and then the red door opens, Lotor’s figure shooing Kova away from the screen door, and he’s back out, something rectangular and white in his hand.

It’s a business card. Lance takes it, and nearly drops it.

“You work at Alfor Association?” It’s only the single most lucrative art dealership and run by  _ Allura’s dad _ . The degrees of closeness between them knocks the breath out of Lance. Allura is in his class. She’s the heir to her father’s art galleries and she’s  _ in his friend circle _ .

“Only a temporary internship,” Lotor says, and the strange tone in his voice makes Lance glance up. Lotor is worried. Why does he look worried? “I want to work in museums, but they accepted my application, so I took it.”

The card has Lotor’s number and email, and with the initial shock over, Lance feels elation bubbling up. He pockets it, and when he raises his head again he doesn’t bother dampening the smile. “What do you feel about coffee?” he asks, and another wave of glittery happiness washes over him as the tension goes out of Lotor’s frame. “I can’t thank you enough for today, and I promise I’ll get the dumpster smell out of your coat.”

A car is pulling up across the street, and the windows are being rolled down. Lance recognizes Hunk’s mini-van.

Lotor sees it too, and he raises a hand to wave, but his eyes are still on Lance, and they’re sort of questioning, sort of astonished, as though he can’t believe Lance is actually doing this. “Coffee’s- good?” Lotor says.

“Deal. I’ll call you!” Lance says, and then Pidge is behind the window, yelling at him, and Hunk is honking the horn. He yells back, and starts backing up. Pidge opens the door for him, and right before Lance climbs in, buoyed by the presence of his friends, he turns and blows Lotor a kiss.

Seeing a flush darken Lotor’s cheeks is worth  _ all  _ the dumpster black outs in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty glad at how this turned out, although I'm not doing such a wordcount for a challenge next time.


End file.
